New rules for liver transplants could reduce wait times

For the more than 13,000 people in the U.S. on the liver transplant list, the wait may become shorter. New rules from the United Network Organ Sharing system went into effect yesterday and overhaul a system that only allowed patients to get donor organs from within their own region, one of 11 such regions around the country. Now, the most seriously ill patients within a 575-mile radius of a donor hospital will be the first offered a liver. Some hospitals in the Midwest and South are continuing to contest the rules, saying that shipping livers farther away could further the inequities experienced by rural patients. UNOS has pledged to see if the new rules, which it estimates will save 100 lives yearly, have the intended effect. A similar rule change went into effect last year for those waiting on lung transplants.